Posts in Record Covers

Right around the time the Ghostly Swim tracklist was coming together i had to check out some more releases by some of the new faces and picked up this limited 7″ vinyl from School of Seven Bells called Silent Grips. You might remember them from the last Prefuse 73 record or saw them on a tour date with Blonde Redhead. They have this wonderful full sound that is worn down, its like if you molded together some of the best parts of Slowdive and replaced the guitars with warm synths and but brought the vocals up front and add some slower dusty Black Moth Super Rainbow percussion. I hope you enjoy.

School of Seven Bells – Silent Grips

Last Saturday i was lucky enough to get into the first ever live band show of Hercules And Love Affair at Studio B in Brooklyn before they venture off to Europe to explode. They brought an amazing live disco band setup with an 8 piece band that included a brass section and 2 singers but they were missing Antony who is the singer in this track “Blind” and previously collaborated with Bjork on Volta. I hope you enjoy this change up, i’ll get into a few different genres while posting on Scott’s blog.

Hercules And Love Affair is due out in the US June 14th 2008 on Mute/DFA

Hercules And Love Affair – Blind

Update: The single is now available, click here for more info.

The new Tycho single / b-side entitled "Adrift / From Home" will be out next Tuesday, May 27th, 2008. This marks my second release with Ghostly International leading up to the full album scheduled for next year. This single will be available exclusively through iTunes for the first month, and at all other online retailers thereafter. While Adrift is a brand new, unreleased track, some of you may notice that From Home was originally released as part of the Past is Prologue album on Merck. This is because as part of this series of singles, I’ve decided to include the extra tracks which were included on the Merck version of Sunrise Projector (renamed Past is Prologue) so that they are available individually for people who bought the original version of the album and missed out on the new material. I’ve posted a couple clips of the songs below, enjoy.

On a design note, this of course represents new ISO50 work. It’s the first album cover I’ve done in a while and I really enjoyed the process this time around. I wanted to evoke the feeling of a 45 record from the heyday of singles and go with a really reserved, minimal type treatment. It’s also meant to carry over the circle concept from the last single. Anyways, on to the music:

Tycho – Adrift

[audio:adrift_clip.mp3]

Tycho – From Home

[audio:home_clip.mp3]

More Info at Tychomusic & Ghostly International.

I want to introduce you all to Jakub Alexander, he helps me out with the day to day workings of ISO50/Tycho related stuff, is an A&R for Ghostly International Records, and runs his own imprint called Moodgadget Records. You may have guessed from his credentials that he’s well versed in all things music related so I’ve asked him to contribute some posts to the blog. He’ll be posting all sorts of stuff from now on, hopefully adding a little more variety to my own selections. So let’s give Jakub a warm welcome, this is his first post.

Hey everyone, i just wanted to start out with something i feel is really pretty on the melody end that is maybe the perfect balance of indie rock and electronic. Also, i wanted some warm saturated key work to share with all the people that come and visit here. I remember first hearing Mercury Program in 2005 from Benoit Pioulard and this song and Tequesta completely grabbed me because i have a thing for vibraphones which dominate Tequesta and keys on this track always relaxes me.

Mercury Program – You Yourself Are Too Serious

Beautiful song from the heyday of IDM and Warp Records. I’m a bit lost with some of Autechre’s work but these sorts of tunes always get me.

Autechre – Slip

Chris clark, to me, is like Boards Of Canada, Aphex Twin, and a bit of Autechre thrown in for good measure (no wonder he’s on Warp, right?) His album Clarence Park is pretty much solid wall to wall. This track is a stand-out if not only for it’s Aphex slant. Sorry for the small cover art, couldn’t find a proper sized version. Also, I’m at Newark airport having some beers with my brother so not all that concerned with Jpeg resolutions at the moment.

Chris Clark – Lord Of The Dance

[audio:clark1.mp3]

70’s prog-rock band Yes are really hit and miss for me. I enjoy a lot of their earlier work but they shifted gears later on and started making the sort of music we now mock when lamenting the cultural shortcomings of that polarizing age known as The 80’s. That aside, they have contributed some amazing work over the years; their eponymous first album is largely considered to be the first Progressive Rock album and it’s certainly a classic.  One of my all time favorite songs is the track Survival from that very same album. The production and musicianship on these earlier songs is, to me,  perfection. It’s these sort of songs that really make me miss the hot summers of my home. It’s funny how the context of your first experience with a song colors your perception of it from that point forward. Although it is an incredibly beautiful song, hearing Survival usually gets me a little down, I start missing home and getting all nostalgic. The first minute is something altogether  transcendent. Being an electronic musician who doesn’t use traditional vocals, the instrumental parts of songs like this are great reference points for building emotion into a song without the need for vocals.

Yes – Survival

Yes was also a visually interesting band. The top five images are paintings by Roger Dean, some of which were used as Yes album covers. The second image is some random shot I found on Flickr while searching for Yes covers. This guy came prepared for whatever he’s about to get into: Portable tape recorder, box of tapes, joint, football, paper towels and of course, a Yes T-Shirt. The final image is from a series of Yes logos also by Dean.

This one’s for Zick, I bet you have this in a glass case somewhere: Save Frank’s homage to the Foo Fighters.

Great cover from one of ambient pioneer and David Bowie producer Brian Eno’s side projects. Via Sleevage where you’ll find an interesting comparison between this imagery and the Timothy Saccenti-Directed video for Battles.

The Boy With The Thorn In His Side was the first single off The Smiths’ 1986 album The Queen Is Dead. It’s certainly one of my favorite songs from Morrissey and Co., but I found a cover version by Jeff Buckley that might rival the original. The only problem is the poor quality, it sounds like it was recorded with a camera phone or something but it’s so good it’s still worth listening. Does anyone know where to find a better copy of the Buckley version?

The Smiths – The Boy With The Thorn In His Side
[audio:thorn.mp3]

Jeff Buckley – The Boy With The Thorn In His Side
[audio:thorn-buckley.mp3]